CajunVegan tagged me to tell you seven weird things about me, but I’ve done this meme so many times, that I’m taking a leaf from her, and offering seven things I’ve never done. Get cozy in one of those comfy home theater chairs and dig into the popcorn. Here we go:

1. I’ve never gone swimming with sharks… but it’s something I really want to do. There’s a company based in San Diego that does five day cruises to Isla Guadalupe, just across the border in Mexico, with cage diving for photography purposes. It costs several thousand dollars, but the beer is free, and the white sharks are plentiful.
2. I’ve never ridden a roller coaster that goes upside down… and I never will. I like the old wooden coasters a lot, and the modern corkscrews are great fun, but I don’t do loops. When I was nine my mother dated a guy who designed coasters, and he explained the construction of the loop and it terrified me.
3. I’ve never lived on a boat… and I don’t really want to, for long, but there’s a B&B in Oakland and San Francisco that lets you overnight on a docked sailboat. And when we were considering a move to Portland several years ago, there was a docked houseboat that I quite liked.
4. I’ve never made a perfect hamburger… It’s a knack I just don’t have. Gourmet food I can cook. Diner food, I can’t. This is especially ironic since my cousins owned a diner in New Jersey.
5. I’ve never been to Italy… and it’s still on my list. I have family in Naples and Caserta I’ve never met. Somehow, I feel a stronger connection with France, even though I’ve not got a lick of French blood.
6. I’ve never been swimming in fresh water… Swimming pools don’t count as fresh water. Swimming pools contain pool water which is chemically unlike anything found in nature. Lakes and rivers do. I’ve never been in one higher than my knees. I learned to swim in the ocean, however. I’m all about the salt water.
7. I’ve never learned to ski… even though I lived in Colorado for seven years, in the mountains, not far from Loveland and Vail. I have, however, watched the Porsche rallies on the Georgetown reservoir, ice skated on same reservoir using a snow shovel as a sail, ice skated in an outdoor rink in Vail, and actually walked to school when there were more than two feet of snow on the ground, only to be greeted by a handwritten note, “No school. Buses can’t get through.” (This is why I refuse to ever live in a place with serious winter again. Ever.)

According to CajunVegan, I’m supposed to tag people. I don’t like tagging people. If this meme speaks to you, do it. If not, write something else.

We don’t often see geckos in January, but the little creatures must know instinctively what I have to go to Weather.com to find out: that it was cool, but not cold, and rainy all day, and as such it’s a lovely night for traipsing across the brick walls of my house in search of…whatever it is small reptiles and amphibians go in search of.

Thankfully, Miss Cleo didn’t see the gecko on the wall when I took her outside for “last call,” just a few moments ago, or she’d still be out there barking at it. Miss Cleo thinks geckos are a personal affront to her, encroaching upon her territory as they do. Miss Cleo is wrong, but you can’t always reason with a cocker/poodle/chi/staffy/thing. She saw a rodent climbing the fence and raced after it, but came back almost immediately, probably because it’s late and we’re all tired from weird sleep patterns.

I’m writing insurance content all this week, and it has me both bored silly and having odd connections. For example, a piece on term life insurance and death benefits made me remember the last few chapters of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

I think I will try to sleep now.